Heartilation
by DevilMakesThree
Summary: I know that I'm not sane. I know that I haven't been quite right for years now. I know, also, that I'm nowhere near 'crazy'. Perhaps just human, at the very core of things. Rated M for language, sexual situations, adult themes, Etc. Creek.
1. Part One: Introduction

**A/N: Hey guys. So, this is my first novel-length SP fic, and I'm pretty stoked for it. I've been turning over ideas for a full-length Creek fic for months now, and I've finally landed on something that I can really work with long-term. A lot of the style is experimental, sort of bringing an artsier light to Craig's personality because I like to think there's more to him than guinea pigs and a chullo hat. I hope you guys enjoy the first chapter, and I look forward to reading your reviews!**

**Disclaimer – I disclaim.**

**Warning: Rated M for language, graphic sexual situations, adult themes, etc. **

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><p>"And how do you feel about that, Craig?"<p>

"I feel like I need a cigarette."

It's the same, every time I sit down in this chair. The same intrusive questions, the same droll replies—the same aggravated silence when I refuse to let down my walls to her, to give her what I know it is she wants. The truth. Well, what's the truth, anyways? It's all perspective and lately, I find myself lacking in that department.

She purses her lips. You've never met anyone who loves to purse their lips as much as this insufferable woman I call my 'doctor'. Swear to god, if you slapped a fat D&G on her mouth you could sell it for a thousand dollars on 5th Avenue.

She sighs.

"Why do you think you have such a hard time talking about yourself, Craig?"

I hate the way she says my name. Like I'm incapable of connecting it to myself without her stretching out each syllable like I just woke up from a twenty-year coma. Like some Rip Van Winkle shit. Like I'm _dangerous_—dangerous to her, dangerous to my family, dangerous to my friends—

_Dangerous to yourself._

I grunt and snatch my bag off the couch, pulling a cigarette from the front pocket before she can bother to tell me not to. The sound of the match slipping against the rough paper inside my wallet is soothing, and I bring the cigarette to my lips with the care someone might give an infant child, or a seedling. But that's me, isn't it? Empty and material—I know no joy outside of my own unyielding self-deprecation.

She cracks the window. We've been at this for four months, after all. We have our antics down to a science, down to an art. Like some sort of sick pantomime. She knows her part and I know mine, and we play them with ease and integrity so that neither of us can ever get hurt. We've come to a mutual understanding of one another. There are boundaries, after all—even the psyche has those. She asks me questions, and I smoke a cigarette. She gets paid, and I go home. We _get _each other. It's simple, this way.

"What do you want to know?"

"Whatever you'd like to tell me, Craig."

She's almost precious, in a batty, narrow, gawky sort of way. I can't say I like or dislike her. I can't really say anything about her at all, only that she's gray matter. A lone voice in a sea of pallid faces; I'm content with that. I sigh lazily and take another drag, stretching my body out against the soft leather sofa beneath me.

"I am a bead of sweat on the universe's cunt, trickling fiercely down toward its disgusting bare feet where I will be absorbed into the proverbial ground to rust and rot for the next 20 millennia—I'm cool with that."

She's quiet. That's okay, I like the silence. It's thick, tangible almost. I could reach out and touch it, cut it and serve it _a la mode_, mold it and mash it together in my hands like clay. I like this sort of quiet, it gives me time to think. Not that I think about much, really. I mostly just make shapes with the lines in the ceiling. It's that white, delicately churned stucco that's supposed to give rooms texture, but just makes you feel sort of held in. Trapped. Sometimes I picture that ceiling getting closer, closing in on my body and crushing me down into the floor, pushing all the life out of my body in the form of fluid and dust and water-based particles. It's my own twisted, backwards, version of a daydream.

I know that I'm not sane. I know that I haven't been quite right for years now. I know, also, that I'm nowhere near 'crazy'. Perhaps just human, at the very core of things. Just a sad, vulnerable little human playing humanoid in the headlights and hiding from the big bad wolf behind cigarettes in the dark.

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><p>Sometimes I take the shortcuts. Sometimes.<p>

Sometimes I take the long way around, cruising the surface streets like some black-eyed predator. Watching, waiting in indifference for the change that never comes. I've lived in this shit town my whole life, and still sometimes it's hard to pick my way through it. I drive from one end to the other, searching every corner for a clue, a landmark in the void that'll direct me home. I've lost bits of myself on these drives, lost crucial parts of my mind that have, in years past, allowed me to exist cohesively with my peers.

I've always thought of life as a sort of game that we all like to play, the board marked occasionally by seemingly significant events made just to make you feel like you're worth more than the air you breathe. Birthdays, holidays, graduations, engagements, weddings, children. I don't see it that way. To me, there are merely things that are and things that will continue to be long after I am gone. Each morning I wake up in my same bed and I do not feel that there is significance to my being awake, but I take advantage of it nonetheless.

I used to walk past the pet cemetery every morning on my way to school. It was unsettling, to see all the flowers on the graves. The tokens of remorse and fond memories, all laid out on the ground like that. The cemetery by the church never had so many flowers—but perhaps animals deserve them more than people. I only say that because when I think of someone laying flowers on my grave years after I die I feel uncomfortable and slightly sick. Driving past it now, the rows of headstones look dark and dismal and unassuming. Perhaps they've forgotten the lives they were made to represent, the countless ghosts that crawl between the aisles of their markings and put salt into the ground.

I live in a house on the end of a quiet street. It's not a particularly assuming house, just a place where I live when I'm not busy drifting through the day in school. Fucked, don't you think it? I can't help but wonder sometimes why anybody bothers, why any of us try to work towards moving forward when death will only set you back. Oh, death. The great 'reset' button. I hope when I die I come back as something simple. Maybe, when I die, I'll come back as a guinea pig, and some head-fucked loner will adopt me and name me and keep me luxuriously happy with a full bowl of water and an orange slice.

I pause when I get out of my car, because there is something off about the picture. It only takes my mind a moment to register the blackness of the streetlamp in front of my walk. It flickers back to life for a moment, going out too quickly as if to say 'Hello, Craig. Remember this?'

And I do. Fuck if I could forget it.

It had been colder that night, I remember that because I'd been wearing my leather jacket. He was standing beside the streetlamp with his shoes in his hand, looking up into the light as though he were waiting to be abducted. I'd given it a perfunctory glance upwards in interest. No aliens, just the stars—quiet, and cold.

"Hey."

It wasn't the cleverest thing I could've thought up to say, but he'd looked at me and that was all I'd really wanted for him to do.

"There's a moth."

"What?"

"Fuck—_Shit_—A moth. It's—_Jesus. _It's a _fucking_ moth."

I think I'd fallen in love with him right that very second, standing beneath my streetlamp and cursing into the dark like a biker on acid. It seems hollow now, an empty picture because the truth is that I haven't spoken to him in months. That in the cell of my mind I know that we probably won't ever speak again, if only because it would hurt him too much.

I light a cigarette and watch the light flicker with the memory, indifferent.

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><p>Craig,<p>

Stopped by and you weren't here. Call me?

- B.

She leaves me notes. The funny thing is, I barely ever see her when I am home. Which is all the time. Anytime I go out, though, which is almost never, she leaves me a fucking note. I won't go see her, she knows that. She taunts me with them. These messages. I can't fuck her. _Won't _fuck her, even if she was the first girl in our class to get tits.

It's a syndrome, living in a small place. Years and years of the same people and after a while you just sort of crash into each other. Blink. Stumble. And it's the only way you reconnect, because after all this time no one really cares about anyone else. That's where girls like Bebe get these silly ideas. I can't say I blame her, though. Not here, not in this void. You're starving, after a while. For movement, for small conversation. For schedules. All that shit you thought you hated, suddenly it's gone and you would give anything to hear someone say 'Well how about them Yankees?'

It was Bebe who pushed me to go after Thomas—she was the one who told me what to say. How to make the right moves. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have stood a chance. It's funny because Bebe wants to suck me off, and it doesn't seem very sensible in my head, since she doesn't really have the equipment I'm looking for. But that's just the world isn't it?

I can't forget the last time with Thomas. I play it over and over in my head, sometimes. Trying to find the flaw. My mistake, my error.

It was a Tuesday night. We were enjoying the darkness on the balcony, in the wicker chair my parents had bought together before my mother stopped getting out of bed and my father stopped coming home altogether. His hair smelled like dry leaves and something else I could never quite describe. Things seemed almost normal from where we were. There was no wind, no reprimands. Nothing keeping our skin from touching save a few pieces of fabric and the conjecture of innocence. Even the moon had decided to show itself that evening, in all its opaque glory. Suspended and floating in space, stretched across the sky like a banner. I loved the way it bathed his skin in its glow.

"Thomas?"

"Craig?" he said in his quiet way. I ran my fingertips over his cheek, admiring the coolness and the smooth texture of his skin.

"I'm sorry."

He took a moment to reply.

"_Fuck_—What for?"

"For being shit."

He'd sat up, pulling his body free from my grasp. I waited with bated breath as he turned to look at me, his eyes suddenly wide and calculating.

"Why do you think that?" he'd asked, his voice not betraying the crass tick that usually plagued him when he was feeling anxious. I hadn't really known exactly what to say to him, after that. The truth? Everything seemed different when laced with the poison of the truth. I didn't want things to change. I would've stayed that way with him forever, frozen. I wanted to stay that way with him.

"I treat you awful sometimes. I'm ungrateful."

He turned from me, and my heart began to hammer in my chest.

"You can be awful," He said slowly, "but you're still my boyfriend. _Shit_. Craig?—"

He was beautiful when he looked back to me.

"I know you blame yourself for not feeling happy all the time. For not wanting me all the time._ Fuck_—Don't. I know you do. Because you're afraid to lose. Afraid of what you can't be sure of. Afraid of me. But mostly just yourself."

I'd put my arm across my face so that he couldn't see me crying. I felt so far away from him in that moment, a thousand miles from anywhere remotely close to his skin, his hands. His hazel eyes which peered at me through the dark, seeing through my mask the way no one had ever bothered to _want _to do before. I was nothing, I was no one. I was a candle in the wind and he was—he was _everything_.

It was his hands that brought me back to him. He placed his fingers on my arms, and ran them down my sides. I'd shuddered when I felt the tips on my bare stomach. We'd made love in the dark.

I used to have a book about insects. I used to really be into that. Insects and birds and things. There was one page I always kept dog eared. It was about the praying mantis. Generally uninteresting creatures, until you get to the part about sex. The female praying mantis, when placed in captivity, will begin to feed on the male while he fucks her. She just bites his head off, and in the process he fucks faster. She has no feelings about it. She doesn't stop, she doesn't think. She doesn't have remorse for him. He belongs to her, he's there to give her pleasure, to give her children. She's ruthless. A female praying mantis in the wild won't eat her mate. In fact, left to themselves, most mantis couples show an overwhelming amount of affection towards one another.

How fickle we become, when we sleep in the city.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to sleep with her. Bebe. I imagine her skin being soft. Her hair is matted, though. Rough and teased. Not like Thomas. I can't imagine my fingers in Bebe's hair.

At night I can feel Thomas's hair on the pillow. I can smell it, too. Like leaves and smoke and frozen apples. I used to eat them as a kid. Winter would come too quickly for the fall and freeze the apples in the trees. I can recall my mother cutting them on the kitchen counter. There was a spice to the smell, some extra spark from the cold.

I've taken to counting days lately. Marking them in numbers on my calendar. I don't know what I'm counting to, or what it will all amount to when the months are gone away. But I think perhaps I'll write a song, or a lyric. Or perhaps a symphony. "A Tribute to Days, Made into Numbers, Calculated in Sets of 31 or Less". By Craig Tucker.


	2. Part Two: Sedative

**A/N: Back again! This chapter is from Tweek's Point of View. **

**Brief explanation of Tweek's given name:**

**In the South Park universe I have crafted with my good friend Jess, Tweek Tweak is just kind of a silly name to give someone, and it's hardly what anyone would call realistic. So, of course, a real name for him had to be thought up. So why 'Trevor'. **

**Jess has this cat. This orange tabby cat, who is on the fritz 99 percent of the time. To put it to you plain, I lived in the same house as this cat for 2 months and it only let me pick it up one time. And when he did he'd cuddle for about a minute and then look at you like he just realized you were a Kong zombie and leap out of your arms like he was being chased by fiendfyre. So. We dubbed Tweek 'Trevor' and in any story where I use Tweek, this is what I will call him. **

**Trevor Tweak is the complete creation of Jess and Trevor the Cat, and I give due credit.**

**Now!**

**Reviews from Anon's:**

**Scarlet Wolf – Thomas is a character from the episode Le Petite Tourette, and though he is very similar in appearance to Tweek he is not Tweek. He is the adorable little boy who has Tourettes and in my mind is the first true love of Craig Tucker.**

**CC – Thank you very much! I hope this chapter is up to par!**

**And now, Chapter Two!**

**As always, thanks for the reviews and please feel free to leave more!**

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><p>These days, life is mostly a blur. Colors, faces, all shifting past me in irregular patterns that never quite manage to hold my eye. My doctor said that it's a side effect of the drugs, and I guess that makes sense. I guess it doesn't really matter, anyways. My days aren't my own to plan. I don't guess I've ever really been 'right'. Not the way other people are 'right'. When I was a kid my parents just chocked it up to my being moody and having a really vivid imagination. After the hospital, though—after the scars. Well. I guess they look at things a little differently now.<p>

I've never really thought of myself as 'crazy'. I've never really been fond of the term, if only because it has the added implication of stupidity or helplessness, and stupid and helpless I certainly am not. I'm not an idiot, and don't ever tell me that I am because I swear you won't be prepared for the verbal onslaught of wit and punt up intellectualism that will come rushing out from between my lips. God knows, my parents never are.

"_Did you have a nice day at school?"_

"_No. Did you have a nice day in Narnia?"_

Because I'm convinced that's where my parents live 99 % of the time. They certainly aren't on the same plane as me. They certainly don't see me, not the way I want them to. All diagnoses aside, I _do _have things to offer this world, in the way of good taste and intellectual measure.

Now, if only the rest of the world could get my memo.

_Tick, tock._

**Stop it.**

Every morning it's the same old routine.

"Trevor, drink your smoothie."

I sip the edge of my cup. _Mmm._ Oranges, Frozen Yogurt, Pineapple—and just a touch of Phenobarbital. Always an invigorating way to start the day.

Then comes time for poor, broken, befuddled Trevor to go to school. My mommy drops me off in front because I can't possibly manage the responsibility of driving a car. All by myself. Without assistance. No, not ever. Not even. I can't walk, either, because my parents are certain that if they let me out into the world without their supervision that I'll immediately go on some sort of psychotic rampage and end up splattered all over page one of the Park Gazette.

"Neighborhood looney goes tooney on several county children while onlookers watch. Carnage, blood and guts. Funnies on page 6."

School is another thing entirely. My teachers talk extra slow to me when they talk to me at all. My parents did me that favor years ago, when they requested a private meeting with the superintendent and asked that I get 'special' favors since my brain was so dankly, dearly departed. Yes, everyone knows about poor, panicked, pillaged Trevor Tweak and his plethora of eccentricities. Before I was old enough to fully comprehend the damage they'd done to my credibility, I used to raise my hand. After about eight years of being 'politely' ignored for my humility's sake, I've given up. Nowdays school is just seven hours of me laying my head on the cool surface of my desk and trying not to rip my hair out and scream every time one of my peers tries to blather about their empty minds for an answer I could easily give if anyone would give me a chance.

Then comes lunch time, and its up, up, up, and away because my mom never forgets to pack the Zyprexa with my sandwich and the little napkin she folds up in case I forget I'm supposed to wipe my hands when I'm through.

At three o'clock my father picks me up in front, and I work a four hour shift at our family shop with the help of some espresso a la Lorazepam. This is about as much freedom as my parents have ever awarded me, and I cherish it so completely that I think if they ever told me I wasn't allowed to work I'd kill them both. Just snap, like one of those leopard print bracelets from the 90s and go Ted Bundy on the both of them.

Now, don't go getting the wrong impression. I love my parents, I do. Dearly. I just can't stand the sight of them most of the time. It's not because they're overprotective, because at least I could understand why they'd want to keep me from the truth of my illness, the vastness of the shit that is this world. It's because they never give me a chance, never have once in ten years considered that _I _am the one with the debilitating illness and that _I _exist beyond it. I don't even think the thought has crossed their minds, even though I've shown in every way I could possibly think of that I am more than just a figure or a statistic. I didn't just _happen _to them. I am unique, I have qualities. I have likes and dislikes, dreams, desires. Oh, ho, ho. If only they knew the depth of my _desire. _My mother still spells out words like 'sex' and 'condom' in front of me at the dinner table, like I never learned how to put 2 and 2 together.

Sometimes, when I'm in bed and my hand is following my mind down south beneath my boxers, I kind of hope she'll catch me.

Just to see the look on her face. Just to see the way her eyes would get so wide. I imagine them falling out of her head, rolling across the floor and out the door like that poor meatball in the kid's songs we learned in preschool.

Because here's my dark, dirty little secret. Promise you won't tell.

I love sex.

Not the tough, manly, burly primal intercourse of the Clyde Donavon variety, either.

No, I like _anal _sex.

Someone call the press, Trevor Tweak is _gay. _

I will say, that did take me a while to come to terms with. Because it just didn't seem to add up. Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of balance of fuckery in the world? After everything else, did I really need to like men, too? What would my parents think?

But then it occurred to me my parent's didn't even let me watch PG-13 movies and I stopped worrying about it.

I figure it's only a matter of time, though. Someday they'll notice that I never talk about girls, and maybe when I'm 30 and I've never even batted an eye in the direction of the fairer sex my parents might start getting ideas. Because even crazies gotta get their rocks off, huh? Even crazies gotta get married.

Even crazies gotta grow up, sometime.

Don't they?

_Tick, tock._

**Oh, fuck off.**

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><p>Music gets me through most of the bullshit. The Tragically Hip, Black Flag, Wingnut Dishwashers Union, Pixies. They know how I'm feeling better than I do, most of the time. My iPod is my most cherished possession, mostly because it took me about five years to convince my parents that if I was old enough to have a laptop I was old enough to have an iPod. That I was old enough to have a few things to <em>myself.<em>

That's how I found Porcupine Tree, and Moldy Peaches. That's how I discovered Andrew Jackson Jihad, and The Kills.

And that was why, with my first paycheck after the iPod, I went out and bought myself a vintage record player from the junkshop. The manual to fix it came from the library, and two weeks later I had my first six vinyls stacked on my dresser and ready to play. My favorite is still The Smiths _Louder than Bombs. _I could listen to that forever, I think.

Through various run-ins at the junk shop and the second-hand store, I found Lobby. Lobby is six foot five and a half and wears shants. You know, shorts that used to be pants? He has Buddy Holly glasses and listens to post-punk hardcore. I like Lobby, and if I were being honest with myself (and with you) I'd tell you that Lobby is my best friend. I'd tell you that sometimes, when my hand is following my mind down south, it's Lobby that's on the circuit. But he's untouchable, and that's something I try hard not to forget.

It was Lobby who told me about the record store in North Park. It'd taken three months, but I'd finally hammered my mother down until she'd agreed that since I _did _take driving lessons at my high school and I _did _get a license that _perhaps _she could let me borrow the Sedan to go to 'friend's house' to 'study'. But only if I agreed to wear my glasses, and I made sure to take my medication on time every day for a week, and only if I took her for a test drive around the block and she deemed my driving skills acceptable.

'_I suppose I passed the test' _I think as I turn into the parking lot of Vinyl Solutions, a cramped store pressed into the corner of a small strip small right next to Big Billy Black's Beef Parlor. The sight of the sign on the front, the glowing neon words that suggest that inside is an absolute _museum _of things I am more than willing to drop every last cent I earn on is enough to put a smile on my face.

The bell that rings out when I open the door is enough to make me jump, but I try to recover as quickly as possible because the last thing I need is to make myself look like a skittish psychopath in what is likely one of the only places left within my grasp where the people don't view me as a total and complete helpless wackjob. My hopes are dashed as a nasally, somehow _familiar _voice grunts out

"Don isn't selling anymore, so either buy something or get the fuck out."

It takes me a few seconds to register that Don must own the place, and that whoever spoke saw my little expulsion of nervous energy and now thinks I'm looking to buy some drugs from him. My eyebrows come together and before I can zip my lips shut I've got acid dripping out in my tone and I'm saying,

"I'm not a fucking tweeker."

Thank God I didn't stutter, too, because that's another one of those embarrassing childhood habits that continues to plague me in my older years, especially when I get really worked up about something. My eyes scan the store, finally landing on the narrow shoulders and long back of a black-haired boy who's got one foot on a step ladder, the other resting precariously against the glass case that serves as a countertop. I watch in mild irritation as he slaps his palm blindly along the high shelf above him, searching for something. He finds it after a few moments, and I'm still watching with narrowed eyes when he finally does turn around, dangling the joint that I assume was the object of his search between his full lips. And that's when it hits me. I _know _this guy. And if I know this guy, that means…

I groan, covering my eyes with my hands and taking a nervous step back towards the door. Can't I leave my house without feeling this way? Can't I just have one place to be fucking free?

And if I had to run into somebody I knew, did it have to be _him? _Did it have to be _Craig _fucking _Tucker? _The boy I've had a wayward, silly, trifling crush on since I was about eleven years old? Can the gods really hate me this much?

_Tick, Tock._

**Urgh!**

"Thomas?"

I lift my head. Thomas? My eyebrows are raised and my mouth is open so quickly that I have to clamp it shut and cover it with my knuckles before I say what I want to say. Because what I want to say is "Close, Tucker, but no cigar." but what I really should do instead is make a 180 and bustle out the door. Because this is dangerous territory, even for pitiably pathetic Trevor Tweak. Not that this is the first time someone's mentioned the resemblance between me and Craig Tucker's nefarious ex-boyfriend, but its not a subject I feel comfortable gauging with the guy—especially if the rumors about what happened between them are even remotely true. And something tells me they are.

"Hey Craig."

Stupid. That's the first thing that comes to mind. Why am I perpetuating this? Why am I not running? Why am I letting him see me, without the tremors? Without the stutters? I go out of my way these days to put forth the persona my parents have crafted for me, if only so people can leave me alone and let me have my moments of freedom with myself—and here I am. Talking to Craig Tucker, plain as day. No big deal.

For the first time since I've walked in, I let my eyes wander. He looks surprisingly different, considering the last time I saw him he was still wearing a chullo hat. He's tall now, very tall, maybe even as tall as Lobby. It's hard to judge from a distance. And he's got nice hair, I think, now that it's out of hiding. And he wears nice clothes. I've always been a sucker for slim fit jeans and vintage leather jackets. I steal a glance at myself in the glass of one of the display cases. Too skinny, too tall for how skinny I actually am. Too-tight blue jeans and an oversized plaid flannel shirt that's probably fused itself with my skin because I wear it so often.

I shift. This doesn't feel right. I'm half expecting him to cuss me out, to flip me off. To demand that I leave before he has to spend half a second actually talking to me (If he remembers me at all). But Craig Tucker doesn't do any of these things.

Instead, he blinks. And then he says:

"Hey, Tweak."


	3. Part Three: Ghost

**A/N: I am so very deeply sorry for how long it took me to put this out. But I bet you're all still here! Ready for another chapter. Right? Heh. Heh. …Heh. O_O**

**So this chapter picks up the pace a little. I really wanted to start a dynamic between them that was believable and realistic, so hopefully it worked out that way.**

**Thank you all for your reviews on the last few chapters!**

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><p>"So how long have you worked here?"<p>

I take a lengthy drag off my cigarette. Things are still a little fuzzy for me. I'm not sure how I ended up sitting on the ass-end of my truck, having a conversation with Trevor Tweak. I haven't spoken to the guy since grade school, and even then—we were never really all that close. I can remember a time when I'd actually wanted to kill the little fucker, for saying all that horrible shit about Stripe. The fond memory of my first pet makes my ears itch a little. I'd loved that thing. Hardcore.

"A while," I reply, because I've never been overly committed with time. Time is shady for me. One day it's Christmas and the next it's Fourth of July. I've always experienced life that way. All my days just sort of blend into this monumental blob of colorless nothing, and I can't ever seem to account for what I was doing the day before last, or where I went this morning, or who I fucked last September. It all feels pre-established. Like I'm in a movie and everything that happened before and everything that will happen after is superfluous. I live in the moment, with the only downside being that I hate the moment I'm living in.

I watch him. He isn't as twitchy as I remember. In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd say he was _mellow. _But that doesn't sound right at all. Trevor Tweak? Mellow Yellow? That'll be the fucking day.

He's still kind of hot, I notice. Especially with a fucking cigarette. Smoking one of my Lucky's, I would even say he looks like a normal guy. A typical teen. A really narrow, big-eyed typical teenaged dude, with a libido and an affinity for extreme sports and dark beers and all that other manly man crap.

"Is it fun?"

I can't help but think _is what fun? _But then I realize he's talking about my job, and I shrug one shoulder. Work has never occurred to me as fun, but I suppose if I had to pick I'd stick with what I've got. Vinyl Solutions is easy and low-key.

"Yeah. I get a lot of albums for free."

"Oh? Employee perk?"

"Not really."

He looks at me a long time. Like seven million years. He looks at me until I can't stand it anymore, and I look back at him in the hopes that I might scare his eyes away. But instead we just end up having a no-blink competition, and as expected, I lose.

We spend the next hour talking about tunes.

I'm kind of bummed when he leaves, and I'm not entirely sure why that is. I don't say hello when we pass each other at school the next day. He doesn't try to say hello, either.

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><p>Sometimes, I lay in the dark and think about death. Not the frilly, superficial notion of one person passing away, either. It's not like that. No, what I think about is the end. The end of existence, the apex of life, the grinding halt of perception coming to a finite and complete close. Like the final note of a song, or the last page in a book. Done, and then nothing. Ended. Such and such and never after, the end. Period. Gone.<p>

The universe, at the end of time's expansion. Hanging, dead and brittle in the symphony of utter silence. Finished.

I think about that sometimes, when I'm laid on my back in my bed. And then sometimes, I light a cigarette and let it hang from my lips, and I think about it some more. Sometimes, I get so caught up with thinking that I forget to breathe, and my breath catches in my chest and I feel the sharp pain of my existence, lashing out against my bones. My life, struggling to continue onward. My life. So easily snuffed out, like a match in the gutter.

* * *

><p>I got the job at Vinyl Solutions almost two years ago. I was barely sixteen, and I needed a reason not to be at home in the afternoons. I needed to get away. I needed to not see anyone I knew from school. I needed to get out of South Park.<p>

It had been a coincidence, my walking into the record store. I'd gotten a tip-off from Kenny McCormick that there was a guy there who sold an ounce on easy credit. I'd been broke, and I'd been bored. I'd wanted to feel high, to get that familiar tingling sensation in my hands that made me feel fragile. That made me feel tainted, like a white feather dipped in black ink.

I'd walked into that shop without a drop of humility. I've never been brave. Just stupid.

Don had liked something about me, I guess. I'd made him laugh with my fuckass attitude, and he'd packed me a bowl and handed me the keys to his shop.

"I need a closing manager. You're it, kid. Don't let people jack my shit."

And that had sort of been that.

My dad likes the fact that I never come home as much anymore. Gives him some quality time with our booze cabinet.

I can't help but feel a little bad for my sister, though. Ruby's kind of got this good fuck bad girlfriend attitude going on. She's beautiful, like my mother used to be. Ruby is my best friend in the world, and I don't think I'd be able to function properly without her. I know she understands where I go when Dad's awake. I know she doesn't hate me for it.

Ruby's brave, unlike me. She's tough. She's the kind of girl you can count on to stick up for herself. She's got balls, you know what I'm saying?

But sometimes I think that I could have done better. That I could do better, as a big brother and all that shit.

* * *

><p>It's four o'clock, and I'm sitting on the counter at work, having a cigarette. Trevor's come back, and this time he's brought his entire collection of vinyls. So we're sitting there listening to Tin-Tin and I wonder I he thinks I look good. Because I can't seem to stop thinking about how good he looks. He's cut his hair a bit, and the flyaway blond has receded into a tousled nest of soft looking hair that I kind of just want to run my fingers through. I know I probably shouldn't look at him like that. I know that there's a big reason why I want to, and that reason has nothing to do with who he is and everything to do with who he looks like.<p>

I wonder what Thomas is doing, and take a drag.

"Did you know cats have nose-prints? Like how you and I have thumb prints," I say, and Trevor smiles, revealing two rows of straight white teeth. I wonder when he got braces. I wonder why I never noticed. But then I decide that that's just how people are, and that's how I am, too. We don't pay attention to anyone until they're dead.

I blink as my cigarette is plucked from between my lips. I look down and Tweak's got this 'So shoot me' look on his face and I swear to god it gets a little hot. Like maybe I could take my fucking jacket off, because the room just upped itself like a hundred degrees. He takes a drag of my cigarette, looking all coy and thoughtful.

"Do you think they've got like a nose-print database? Like the Kitty Identification System? To keep track of the cat delinquents."

He's crazy. I've already figured that out. He's totally fucking insane, but he likes good tunes. And he's got nice teeth. And he kind of looks like—oh, fuck off.

"Someone's gotta keep tabs on those punk ass cats who eat their dinner out of garbage cans," I reply, an easy smirk on my face. I don't remember when I last smiled so much. But it's kind of nice.

Trevor grins, popping my smoke back in my mouth.

"Strutting by with their tails in the air. It's devious."

I shake my head and stub out my cigarette. I think I actually like him.

"Incorrigible," I say, amused.

He moves, and sits next to me on the counter. I kind of like how close he is. He smells like soap and my cigarettes. I light another and he takes it out of my mouth.

* * *

><p>Trevor and I spend most of the evening bullshitting and listening to all his records, and I don't end up closing up shop until well after eleven. The drive back to town is long and quiet, and I don't take the shortcuts. I watch the pet cemetery out my window, but my mind is elsewhere.<p>

Somewhere in the past, where Thomas Tracey had fallen into my lap at a party and I fell in love. We'd been fifteen and stupid, and I'd been drunk as hell. Jessie Thompson had stuck her hand down my pants in the kitchen, and I'd only barely escaped with my dick unchaffed. Jessie was a whore, and she could never figure out when enough was enough.

Thomas had dropped onto my knees. Maybe someone had pushed him. Maybe he'd decided to sit there, just to break the ice. I didn't really care. All that mattered was he was warm, and he had a nice smile. I'd touched his hair and asked if he still needed his laundry done.

We'd stumbled down the street later, singing 'California Dreamin' and laughing at the stars. He'd taken off his shoes.

It's after midnight by the time I sneak open my front door. It's dark, and I think my dad must be passed out on the couch by now. But I've never really been what anyone would call lucky.

His lips around my name make me shiver. I look over my shoulder, one foot on the bottom step. He's got that angry look in his eyes, like he wants to hit me. And when he asks where I've been I know he's going to. And when he does I'm not really surprised. Just tired.

I put some ice on my split lip and pass out.

I dream about Trevor, and kitty espionage.

* * *

><p>The next day at school I eat lunch by myself. I don't really have a group anymore. All the people I used to call my friends have found new friends. Even my old group eats without me. Craig and those guys, minus Craig. So maybe just 'those guys' now. I catch Token's eye and look down at my peas. Token, Clyde, and I. Best friends for life. A short-lived experiment, a little blip on their record. Clyde, who used to sleep over at my place. Clyde, the first person to ever get me blazed off my fucking balls. Clyde who I made out with once when I had too much to drink at Bebe's house. We haven't spoken in a year, and it's funny because if you asked him he'd say we were never friends at all.<p>

"You look like you've just seen a ghost."

Trevor's sitting down before I can tell him it's okay if he does. I guess it really doesn't matter. I push my peas around my plate, not really surprised to find him looking at me.

"A spooky ghost," I reply, stabbing one of the peas with my fork and bringing it carefully to my lips.

"Chains and blood?"

"Everywhere."

"Maybe it's your dead business partner, come back from the grave to tell you Christmas is going to happen whether you like it or not."

"Maybe."

"Ruined the life of any crippled toddler's recently?"

"All the crippled toddlers. Every last one."

He spins a bottle cap on the table. I watch it go, vaguely impressed as it bounces across the table and onto the floor.

"You know, Dr. Seuss coined the word 'nerd'. It's true."

"So I'm a nerd?"

"No, you're a nerkle."

"Thank god."

We sit there for a while longer, and then Tweak leaves for class. I feel the lack of his presence like a slap across the face, and I wonder if I'm losing it. Then I think about it for an extra second, and I know that I've been losing it for a long time. I push my peas away, and rest my head in my hand.

Maybe it's not just who he looks like.


End file.
